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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298223">12DaysofJATP - Holiday Travel</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LWhoScribbles/pseuds/LWhoScribbles'>LWhoScribbles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Christmas, Country Music, Family, I'm so sorry, Nobody Gets Left Behind, Road Trips, but not really, oh reggie, or forgotten, the pouting is real</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:01:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,262</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298223</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LWhoScribbles/pseuds/LWhoScribbles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>12 days of "Julie and the Phantoms"! </p><p>Desperate times, desperate and debatably dumb measures.</p><p>Co-conceptualizer: my darling sib 💖</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>12 Days of Julie And The Fantoms</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>12DaysofJATP - Holiday Travel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, guys, so we’re going to my ‘buelos place for Christmas. We’ll only be gone a few days.”</p><p>“Cool! Road trip!” Reggie jumped up and pumped his fist, but Alex and Luke grabbed him back down.</p><p>“Dude, I think she means—,” Luke starts, throwing an arm around Reggie’s neck.</p><p>“—not with us.” Alex finishes, firmly patting Reggie on the back. “Just her family.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Reggie,” Julie apologizes.</p><p>“Oh,” Reggie looks down at his fingers, fidgeting in his lap, nails still twinkling with chipped glitter polish from their holiday gigs. “I guess I can give you your presents when you guys get back.”</p><p>“Aw, Reggie, you didn’t have to—,” Julie tries, but Reggie jumps back up, shrugging off his friends.</p><p>“Hey, I’m gonna go say goodbye to Carlos and Ray,” and he poofs out before anyone can say anything else.</p><p>“Well, that didn’t go as bad as it could have,” Alex says after a moment.</p><p>Luke shakes his head, “No, it might have actually been worse.”</p><p>“I wish you guys could come with us, but…” Julie trailed off. They’d already talked about it. They all knew it wasn’t a great idea. And they’d all known Reggie would take it the hardest.</p><p>The beginning notes from Hank Williams’ lonesome, folksy guitar traveled out to the studio from the house and they all stopped to listen.</p><p>“I thought we hid that cd?” Luke said.</p><p>“Youtube,” Alex sighs. Julie sighs, too, and drops onto the couch between them.</p><p>“He’ll be okay, right?” she asks.</p><p>“Probably,” Luke says.</p><p>Alex pats her knee and goes to talk Reggie into turning down the music. It’s his turn.</p><p>Later, when Julie is packed and gone to see Flynn before she goes, Alex and Luke are trying to convince Reggie to come out of the studio loft to see off the Molinas.</p><p>“Come on, man, you’ll feel bad if you don’t get to say goodbye,” Luke says.</p><p>“I feel bad now. And Ray and I already had our moment, anyway,” Reggie sulks back.</p><p>“I don’t know if playing ‘I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry’ on repeat all over the house counts as a moment,” Alex says.</p><p>“You just don’t understand our bond!” Reggie sobs.</p><p>Luke whacks Alex’ arm. “Way to go, dude,” he says under his breath, and then louder, “Reg, he didn’t mean that.”</p><p>Reggie starts singing through hiccupping breaths. <em>“Hear that lonesome whippoorwill, he sounds too blue to fly…”</em></p><p>Alex throws his hands up. “Oh, for the love of—REGGIE, GET DOWN HERE ALREADY!”</p><p>
  <em>“THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN IS WHINING LOW, I’M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY.”</em>
</p><p>“I can’t believe I’m saying this—REGGIE, WE’LL GO WITH THEM, OKAY?” Luke yells into the loft.</p><p>Reggie stops singing. Alex stares at Luke, horrified.</p><p>“You can’t be serious,” he says. Reggie sniffles from the loft, but they hear him shuffle to the edge, clearly listening.</p><p>“I dunno, Alex, how much country can you do over the next several days?”</p><p>Alex is silent for a solid five seconds. “Fine, but Julie’s not gonna like it.” He’s sighing and shaking his head when Reggie drops out of the loft and he and Luke have to scramble to catch their resident disaster.</p><p>“You guys are the best!” he cries, not caring that he’s just given the other guys an afterlife heart attack.</p><p>Julie sighed for the hundredth time and finally got in the car.  There was only so much she could stall.  Were the guys really not coming out to say goodbye? If they were anyone else, she could just text them for Christmas, but apparently ghosts and cell phones aren’t typically compatible. Rude. It would be a solid two weeks before she saw then again, but whatever.</p><p>The drive seemed to go on forever. Not even her dad’s karaoke playlist or Carlos’ awful jokes from his “Jokes and Puns for Road Trip Fun” book were helping. She was relieved when they pulled over to gas up and hit the bathrooms at EddieWorld in Yermo. They were about halfway and she really wanted to walk around and shake off this mood before they got there. She pulled on her sweater and got off the car. She’d only taken three steps when she heard,</p><p>“Hey, she didn’t see us!”</p><p>“Oh my god, dude!”</p><p>Julie stopped and spun around. Her dad looked over at her from the other side of the car and she smiled at him. All good, nothing to worry about! EXCEPT THE THREE DEAD GUYS CLINGING LIKE SARDINES TO THE ROOF OF THEIR VEHICLE <em>WHEN</em> <em>THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY HOME</em>. She makes a show of patting down her pockets, like she thinks she forgot something, but she’s looking her bandmates sternly in each of their stowaway eyes and jerks her head toward the gas station. Carlos is watching her with the beginnings of suspicious excitement from the car window. She waves and smiles, innocent as can be, and turns back around to march into the EddieWorld, and the guys had better be following behind her.</p><p>Julie wanders down the aisles, taking her time to look at the candy, before she feels safe enough to pull out her phone in front of the chips.</p><p>“What are you guys doing here?” she demands.</p><p>“Ahhh—,”</p><p>“Weeee were just—,”</p><p>“Reggie was sad,” Alex finally blurts and shoves their base player in front. Luke nods fast.</p><p>Reggie twists his head back and forth trying to look over his shoulders, shocked at the latest betrayal his band, his brothers have just committed. He is wounded!</p><p>But Julie’s tone is unexpectedly soft instead of mad when she says, “Oh, okay.” And that’s it.</p><p>“That’s it?” Luke peeks around Reggie. Alex peeks around them both. Julie thinks for a minute, chewing on her lip, and then she shrugs and nods.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s it. I mean, it’s Christmas,” she says, “and I already missed you guys.” She turns away and paws through the Gardetto’s.</p><p>“Aww, you love us! You really love us!” Luke laughs and swings around to all but tackle Julie with an arm around her shoulders.</p><p>Reggie, not to be left out, leaps forward to ruffle her hair. “We knew you’d be lonely without us!”</p><p>Alex shakes his head, but he’s grinning. “Good lord. Hey, does this mean we get to ride in the car now?”</p><p>“Oh my god, look! They make ketchup flavor chips!”</p><p>“Which ones do you think Ray would like?”</p><p>Julie nods at Alex, trying no to laugh too loud, and has to hurry to catch the chip bags that are suddenly flying at her. “You guys, I am not buying half the chips in the store!”</p><p>Julie is a lot happier for the next two hours until they get there, singing along with her dad and the guys, who have all crammed themselves in the backseat with Carlos. She even laughs when Luke and Reggie take turns trying to guess the punchline to Carlos’ joke book jokes.</p><p>When they arrive and she’s helping her dad get everything into her ‘buelos house, she’s practically bubbly and she wonders if touring some day will be like this. And then she hears Alex swearing and Luke is cracking up. Reggie is saying, “Why didn’t we think of that!”</p><p>Julie runs back to the car to see what’s going on. She gets there in time to see Willie unfolding himself from the trunk.</p><p>“Hey, we there yet?” He waves at Julie. She can’t even begin to explain to her grandfather what is so funny and she spends the next two weeks pretending to be on the phone a lot.</p>
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